‘Crying in H Mart’ Adaptation ‘On Pause’ Says Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner
"I still have faith it will get made someday, but it’s not happening anytime soon," says Michelle Zauner.
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Japanese Breakfast guitarist and vocalist Michelle Zauner has offered a disappointing update to the status of her critically-acclaimed memoir’s film adaptation.
Zauner, who co-founded the Philadelphia-based band in 2013, released Crying in H Mart in 2021 following an essay of the name that name was published in The New Yorker in 2018. Inspired by her mother’s passing and the emotional experience of visiting the titular H Mart stores, Zauner had previously chronicled her encounters with loss in a 2016 essay for Glamour magazine.
The publication of Crying in H Mart was met with an overwhelmingly-positive response, with the book ultimately spending 55 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list. In 2023, it was reported that The White Lotus’ Will Sharpe would be directing a feature film adaptation of the book, with Stacey Sher and Jason Kim producing.
According to an official synopsis, the adaptation was described as a “coming-of age story about a half-Korean daughter who returns to small town Oregon to care for her Korean mother. Critical and smothering Chong-mi and creative and independent Michelle struggle to understand each other across a cultural fault line, only learning to see and accept one another through the formative power of music and the vibrant flavors of Korean cooking.”
In a recent interview with SSENSE, Zauner discussed the current status of the adaptation and revealed that those who had hoped for a timely arrival of the film will now be left waiting for an undetermined period of time.
“Well, it’s on pause,” Zauner explained. “There were issues with the Hollywood strikes, and the director stepped away from the project. I spent a year working on the screenplay, which was a tough but rewarding process. I still have faith it will get made someday, but it’s not happening anytime soon,” she added. “Right now, I’m focusing on other creative projects, so the film will have to wait.”
Though she didn’t address specifics of her creative projects, Zauner and her Japanese Breakfast will be releasing their fourth album, For Melancholy Brunettes (and Sad Women), on March 21. Their previous record, 2021’s Jubilee, was their first to chart on the Billboard 200, reaching a peak of No. 56.
